Americans now have 3.6 close friends on average and lose nearly one per year, according to a survey by psychologist Kylie Sligar. Gen Z and men see friendships fade fastest. TJ Walker argues phones and video games replaced the automatic social ties we used to have, so friendships now require deliberate work: show up, initiate, check in.
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Fewer friends, thinner ties. According to an organization called Talker Research, most Americans now keep a very small circle, just 3.6 close friends on average. And adults report losing nearly one close friendship a year over the past decade. Respondents say about nine. Close ties faded, most often because of distance, with life transitions and one side stopping the outreach close behind. The the survey also found Gen Z loses friends faster than boomers, and men report more attrition than women. Licensed clinical psychologist Kylie Sligar, whose practice commissioned the study, says that adult friendship requires intention in an era when so much of life is virtual. Her prescription? Show up consistently, take initiative, and be willing to feel a bit awkward. Maintenance matters too. Regular check ins, genuine curiosity and showing up for milestones. As Sligar puts it, if you want a village, you need to become a villager. The bottom line? Fewer automatic friendships, more deliberate ones. And resilience grows where we invest. Okay, what's the real message here? Americans and people around the world increasingly have fewer and fewer close friendships. This is bad news if you're a human being. The number one culprit, spending more time in the virtual world staring at a phone, watching this program, which I appreciate you doing, but at some point you got to put down the phones, turn off the tablets, go have a meal with a friend, pick up the phone, don't text, but actually call and talk to a friend. Have lunch with a friend, go play baseball or softball or golf or pickleball with friends. That is going to be the secret to a happier life. Let's dig a little deeper here. This is a trend that's been going on. It does seem especially pronounced with men, women with young men especially, becoming more and more isolated. The world of video games now there's, there are times when I wake up thinking, wow, I'd love to be 18 today. I have, you know, 70 years ahead of me. And there are other times I think, wow, I am so profoundly happy I'm not 18 today. The all the virtual forces out there addicting you to attention. When I was 18, I loved video games, but I had to put in a quarter to play Pac man or Galaga and I wasn't that good. Quarter wasn't going to last me more than about eight or 10 minutes. And I knew I couldn't really afford to spend more than a dollar a day. So at most I'm going to spend maybe 40 minutes a day playing video games. So there wasn't, I didn't require any self discipline on my part. After the 40 minutes was up, I basically had to talk to friends in college, I had to go out and play tennis. I had to go out and play Frisbee. I had to talk to. There wasn't anything else to do. Today you can stay locked in your room, never pull a quarter out of your pocket, play video games all day long, or watch porn all day long, I guess, is what a lot of people are doing, and especially men. Don't mean to besmirch women who enjoy that, but it does seem to be an especially difficult problem for men and young men. Yes, we do have an era where people can move around more and take jobs, but that's been around for a while. When I graduated from college, my family lived in North Carolina. I've just moved to New York City, did that for a while, moved to Alabama, did that for a while, moved to Florida, then Washington, Florida and New York. People have been able to move around for a long time. Back then the difficulty was it cost a lot of money to make a long distance phone call. These days for so many of us, it doesn't really cost anything to make a long distance phone call. So I don't think that is the blame. I think the real issue is has to become a priority. And the problem with real friends is the not like talking to character AI where your character AI or your chatbot always tells you you're right, always agrees with you. Real friends aren't like that. They're going to call you on your bs. You know what? That's a good thing. We need to be called out on our bs. We need to be told when we're wrong. We need the actual friction of real life human interaction. And I appreciate you interacting with me occasionally calling me out. That's why unlike most successful podcasts, I do this show live because I want to give you an opportunity to to say what you disagree with, what you agree with, what you like, what you don't like. And we share that part of the show as I'm doing right now. So the hourly Pilgrim says, hi, I am Shaffey. I'm connecting with you today. Well, thank you. I do appreciate that. And Hourly Pilgrims creates news and wants to work in the Western media. A LinkedIn user says, hi TJ, what's the topic for today? So the first topic is about friendship and connecting. So my LinkedIn friend, thank you so much for participating today and connecting and Hourly Pilgrim. I appreciate you doing that as well. If you want to know how to connect with people in Western media, do what you're doing right now. You're connecting with me. I am a part of Western Media living here in the United States and have been working in and around and been a guest on every major US TV network around, plus a lot of others in the world. So what you're doing right now, just connecting, adding value is good. You may want to start your own newscast and build your own audience would be a great way too. Stay tuned and we'll talk more in the final section of the show about your specific needs. But very much appreciate you reaching out. Thanks for doing so. We have fun show today, lots coming up. Again, special hello to our new friends joining us on POD TV and hello to all of our old friends now on podcasting platforms. Tomorrow will be our two month birthday, so looking forward to celebrating that. So if you've been listening on podcast, we're less than two months old, so whatever podcast platform you're on, please follow us, Please subscribe. Please leave a review if possible. Hello to my special friends on TikTok joining us on a separate feed and those of on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and all the others. Twitch. Thanks for being with us today.
